by Cynthia Eden
Some they knew too well. And it wasn’t because of psychic voodoo shit.
“So what’s he gonna do next?” Captain Harwell’s face had tensed up. “If he’s some serial killer—”
“To get the moniker, the perp would need to kill three people,” Bowen interjected.
Harwell’s frown grew heavier. “What?”
“The term...serial killer...usually the perp murders three or more people. And as far as what we think he’s going to do next...” Bowen glanced at Macey.
Her stomach twisted. They were in absolute agreement on this point.
“He’s going to kill again,” Bowen replied. “Our job is to find out who he’s going after. Like Macey said, the more we learn about the victims, the more we learn about the killer.”
* * *
THEY’D GONE BACK to the Remus crime scene. Macey slammed the SUV’s door behind her and turned to look at the remains of the cabin. The fire had burned hot and hard, and the structure was barely standing. The wood remaining was blackened, and the scent of ash hung heavily in the air.
A line of yellow police tape blocked off the area. There was no sign of a crime scene team or an arson investigator. It was just her and Bowen. Macey had her gun holstered at her side as she approached the cabin.
“I want to look around the perimeter,” Bowen announced. “Find out just where the hell our guy was when he watched us go inside.”
Macey nodded and she followed him. The ground was covered in tire tracks and footprints. Dozens of law enforcement personnel had combed the area, and as the firefighters battled the blaze, she feared their hoses and powerful bursts of water might have destroyed any evidence that had been left behind.
Bowen paced away from her and began walking through the line of trees that surrounded the little cabin. His gaze was on the ground as he walked. She knew that he was looking for signs that might have been missed during the darkness. When he paused and then crouched low, she hurried to his side.
“Oil,” he said.
She could see the faint brown stain on the grass.
“He could have parked his four-wheeler here, it would have been covered by the bushes.”
A thick growth surrounded the spot. Perfect for hiding.
Bowen rose. His gaze was on the cabin. “He would have been able to see us perfectly.”
She knew that the search team had found gasoline canisters in the woods near the cabin. The perp had watched them go in, and while they’d been searching the cabin and finding the body, he’d sprung his trap. “We need to get the evidence collection team out here again.” She’d already spoken with the local FBI bureau, too. She wanted more feet on the ground on this case.
She wanted—
Bowen’s phone rang.
The guy had service? Her phone connection had been spotty since they’d made it to Gatlinburg.
He frowned but quickly pulled out his phone. “Murphy,” he said as he put the phone to his ear.
But in the next moment, his eyes had turned to slits of fury. He’d lowered the phone and tapped his finger on the screen so that she could hear...
“There’s someone else...here for you to find.” The voice was low and rasping. Static crackled. “But, really, if you’d done your job right...sooner, you would have found him...by now.”
Macey stepped closer to Bowen—and to his phone—even as her gaze swept the area.
“Who is this?” Bowen demanded.
“I’m the man who beat you...to Daniel Haddox.” More static. The connection seemed to be weakening. “I’m the man who...beat you to Patrick Remus.” A pause. “And if you aren’t good enough, I’ll beat...you to the next one, too.”
“This isn’t a fucking race,” Bowen growled.
“Isn’t it?” His rasping taunt drifted over the crackling line. “I think...it is. And I think you’re...losing. The big, bad profilers. Guess you aren’t so...special. I do your job better.”
“We don’t kill,” Macey said, driven to speak. “That isn’t what the FBI does—”
Mocking laughter broke through her words. “It’s what...he does. Bowen kills. That’s how he got into...the FBI in the first place.”
Her gaze flew back to Bowen’s face and she saw that his expression was a mask of hard fury.
“I learned...from watching you, Bowen.” That distorted voice continued, “But I’m better than you now. Everyone...will know that.”
The line went dead.
“Son of a fucking bitch.” Bowen immediately tapped the screen to call the number again and—
“You’ve reached the Gatlinburg Police Department. If this is an emergency...”
It was an automated voice, one that rattled off instructions for the caller.
Bowen’s gaze glinted as he stared at Macey.
And the robotic voice kept speaking. “If you know the extension you wish to reach...”
* * *
THEY’D TAKE THE BAIT. He knew it. Bowen wouldn’t be able to resist. He’d studied the other man, that part hadn’t been a lie. Once upon a time, he’d even admired the guy.
Not anymore.
Bowen would hunt because that was who he was. He’d hunt and he’d lose.
Because that is who I am. I’m the better hunter.
And Macey...Macey always thought she was doing what was right. Her self-righteous words rang in his ears. We don’t kill. That isn’t what the FBI does.
Before he was done with her, she would kill. And she’d see exactly what the FBI did—what she would do.
He whistled as he walked down the busy street. Tourists were fucking everywhere, but that was good. It was always easy to disappear into a crowd.
He knew what move Bowen would make next. Bowen would try to trace the call, but that shit wouldn’t happen. He’d planned, oh, he’d planned well. The call would just connect back to the police department. He didn’t leave traces behind.
If Bowen wanted him, he’d have to work harder.
Harder and smarter.
* * *
MACEY STARED DOWN at the remains. What little was left, anyway.
“Bad, isn’t it?” a male voice behind her said, sympathy heavy in his tone. “But not the worst I’ve seen, unfortunately.”
Macey glanced over her shoulder at the ME. Dr. Shamus McKinley’s wire-framed glasses were perched on his nose. His skin was a warm brown, his eyes were a deep gold that glinted with intelligence and the silver at his temples was the only hint at his age. He’d struck her as being a no-nonsense ME. Straight to business, but still sympathetic to his victims.
“Not a whole lot to go by,” he added as he rounded the table and pointed to the remains with a gloved finger. “The body was severely burned.”
Burned until nearly nothing was left. “Were the nails recovered?”
Shamus looked up at her. “Yes.” His jaw locked. “That was something new.”
“Because of the damage, will you be able to tell if they were delivered postmortem?” She suspected the answer based on her own medical training.
He shook his head.
But I’d hoped to be wrong.
“I will say, the victim’s lower extremities were burned far more severely than his torso and his head.”
She nodded and forced herself to look away from the remains. The smell... Macey swallowed. “When Special Agent Murphy and I arrived on scene, the victim’s upper body hadn’t been ignited. There were obvious signs that his lower body had been burned, though.”
Shamus exhaled. “He was tortured before death.”
“Yes. The burns on his upper body... I can confirm those happened postmortem.” She turned away from the body and saw the evidence bag with the nails. She picked up the bag, studying them carefully. They looked to be the same size as the nails retrieved from Daniel’s body, but she measured them, just in ca
se. Measured the head of the nail. The length...
The same.
“We’ll be sending these to the FBI’s lab.” Not that she meant any disrespect to the local authorities. “Our lab can get a faster turnaround for us, and they’ve already got the materials from the crime scene in North Carolina.”
Behind her, he was silent.
Then he let out a long sigh. “There’s this...museum in town...” Shamus’s voice was low, hesitant. “You know Gatlinburg, we’ve got all kinds of things to bring in the tourists. This place—it’s full of strange things. Oddities and stuff.”
She turned back toward him but found that his gaze was on the remains.
She kept her stare on him.
“I took my grandson there over the summer.” For a moment, his lips thinned. “He’s a little thing, just turned six, and he got scared by one of the exhibits.”
She waited, knowing this story would go somewhere.
His gaze finally lifted to hers. “They had this skull in there, supposedly from some old tribe in Africa that practiced voodoo magic. The skull scared him so much, not because he thought it was real, but because the skull had nails driven into it.”
Macey sucked in a quick breath. What he was saying—her own research had uncovered a link between nails in the body and voodoo rituals.
“Not typical voodoo,” he continued. “This was to hurt someone. According to the chart there, every time you wanted something bad to happen to a person, you drove a nail into the skull.” Once more, his gaze slid back to the body. “Guess someone really wanted something bad to happen to that guy.”
“I’m going to want the name of that museum.”
He nodded. “Thought you might.”
“I’ve been researching cultures that use nails. In the Congo region, there’s a tribe that has a religious idol.” She licked her lips. “Nkondi. But...what they do to the statues, it’s nothing like this.” She gestured to the body. “This is personal. This is an attack. This is...hate.”
Shamus took a step back. “That’s what they were called at the museum. Hate nails.”
Her phone rang then, vibrating in her pocket. She pulled it out quickly and stared at the text from Bowen.
Need to see you ASAP. Got a hit on NamUS.
NamUS—the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
Her phone vibrated again.
Actually got more than one hit...too many.
A shiver slid over her.
* * *
BOWEN HAD TAKEN over the conference room in the police station. As soon as Macey entered the room, he dropped his news. “Ten.”
She froze, her unusual eyes flaring wide. “Excuse me?”
He rose and stalked toward the map he’d pinned to the wall—and he pointed to the bright circles he’d made on the map. “I found a pattern.”
She shut the door behind her and hurried forward. “What kind of pattern?”
“Over the last two years, there are ten hikers that fit a profile—young males, all in their early twenties. They left hiking alone, and then they vanished. Most of them weren’t even reported missing for several weeks because they didn’t have close ties to their families.”
“You’re telling me ten people have gone missing here in the last two years?”
His brows climbed. “Actually, almost twenty have gone missing in the area.”
Her lips parted.
“But only ten fit my pattern based on age and sex.”
She shook her head. “What about the others?”
“Some were older, some were female, some disappeared in a group...and they used different trails.”
“Different trails,” she repeated. “Okay.”
He pointed to the red trail he’d marked. “Eight of our missing ten males departed on this trail.”
“And the other two?”
“No one knows what trail they were supposed to use, but my money says they took the same one.”
She leaned in closer to the map. Her sweet scent teased his nose and her arm brushed against him. “With so many victims, why didn’t someone point this out sooner?”
“Their disappearances were reported, but they were just listed as missing persons. Hikers who got lost in the mountains and never returned home. Most of these guys were amateurs, this was their first or second big hike...so it just seemed like a tragic accident when they went missing. They were considered people who got lost in the woods, nothing more.” And he wouldn’t have even looked at the puzzle pieces if it hadn’t been for that damn call. “But the perp...he brought us to Gatlinburg for a reason. He brought Patrick up here for a reason. So I knew that I needed to look closer at this area. And when I went into NamUS, the hits wouldn’t stop.”
Her head turned and she was staring into his eyes. “You’re saying you think a serial has been operating up here—”
“For years.” Now he was grim. “Operating right under the nose of the park rangers, of the local cops, of everyone, because the disappearances weren’t thought to be linked to foul play. Every single one of them went down as an accident. A lost hiker.”
“Were any remains found?”
He shook his head. “But that isn’t unexpected. There are so many bears up here, coyotes... They could have destroyed anything they came across.”
She pulled her lower lip between her teeth and he could practically see the wheels spinning in her head. “This guy we’re after...he found the pattern, that’s what you think, right?”
Hell, yes, it was. “He found it. He saw what no one else did.”
Now she backed up a step. “Maybe...or maybe he’s responsible for that pattern. That’s an option we can’t overlook.” She began to pace and her shoes clicked on the floor. “That could be the very reason he brought us to this town. He was tired of his work not being noticed. He wanted attention, so he made sure he got it.”
That was one possibility, yes. “My gut says no. This guy we’re after, I swear, it’s like he’s profiling, too. Only he’s one step ahead of us.”
Once more, her gaze darted to the map. “Have you told Samantha?”
“Called her right after I texted you. She’s sending Tucker Frost over this way. Tucker and Jonah Loxley.”
Her gaze shot to him. “She added Jonah to the team?” Her eyes gleamed. He knew she liked the other agent.
“Looks that way.” And he wasn’t sure how he felt about that addition right now. “She thinks Jonah’s tech knowledge can help us out. Considering the way the perp had us chasing our asses with that phone call...” The clever bastard had made it seem as if his phone call had come from the police department. “Well, we need someone who comes from a strong tech background on our side.” Jonah had worked in cyber crimes for years.
But the guy had been a desk jockey that time. He hadn’t seen a lot of field action. This case would be different for him. And sometimes, when agents got in the field...
There’s no safety net out here.
“I’ve been trying to convince Samantha that Jonah should be added. We needed someone with his skill set and...he’s like us.”
Like us. She meant the ties that they all had to killers.
“He has a personal stake in these investigations,” Macey added. “And that stake can make all the difference in the world. That’s something we’ve all learned. That’s the whole reason Samantha made her team.”
He nodded. And Bowen didn’t want to admit that maybe—hell—maybe he was jealous of Jonah. He knew that Jonah and Macey were close, and he didn’t like that fucking fact. Suck it up, Murphy. Do the job.
But if Jonah so much as looked at Macey the wrong way when Bowen was near...
Her shoulders tensed as she turned to look at his tactical board once more. “I think we need to go out on a few stops. We have plenty of daylight left. No sense wast
ing it.” The morning was gone, but they had the afternoon and evening to use.
Bowen cleared his throat and said, “We’re going to need some equipment.” He tapped the red trail on the map. “Because we’re going hiking.” The best way to learn from the victims would be to try to re-create their steps, at least as much as possible. They could get out into the field and talk to the park rangers. See if anyone remembered anything about those disappearances.
“I made a discovery, too. Thanks to the ME.”
His head craned toward her.
“The nails struck me as being very important to this killer. Driving them into the victims seemed symbolic. I did research earlier, and I found a link to a group of individuals living in the Congo...” Her words trailed away. “While I was with the ME, he told me about a visit he’d had to one of the ‘oddity’ museums in the area. Turns out, they have a skull there on display, one that is filled with hate nails.”
“Hate nails?” He did a double take and forgot Jonah Loxley for the moment.
“Each nail that you drive into the skull is supposedly a wish for ill luck to befall your enemy. It’s...it’s like a voodoo doll. Every nail is a bad wish. An ill thought.” Her shoulders straightened. “With that skull here in the city, we can’t overlook the connection. We need to see it for ourselves. The killer could have been inspired by it, and that could have made him use the nails as his—”
“Signature.” Yeah, Bowen got exactly where this was going. “So we had a budding serial on our hands, someone who’d learned to track other killers. He wanted to stand out, he needed a signature, and inspiration struck him.”
She nodded. “After our visit into the mountains and our chat with the rangers, I’ll arrange for us to get an after-hours view of the museum. And I’ll have the local FBI agents check out all the employees there.” But she still hesitated and he saw the worry in her eyes.
“What is it?”
Her head cocked to the right as she studied him. “It’s you.”
Now he was the one to close the distance between them. But he didn’t touch her. He wanted his hands on her, but they were working the case. And during the day...hands off.
“He called you, Bowen. And when he spoke to you, he didn’t address you as Agent Murphy. To him, you were Bowen.”